Ruth Lawton & Jo Powell Birmingham City University

1. LLAS: Meeting the Current ChallengesThe Creating Future-Proof Graduates project: resources to enhance employability in the HE curriculum Ruth Lawton & Jo Powell Birmingham City University

2. Project Background • Creating Future-Proof Graduates • NTFS Project 2007 £200,000 from HEA + contribution from University • Initial Partners • Every Faculty and a number of Central Departments • Employers from music, law and housing • Centre for Recording Achievement • Palatine – HEA subject centre for Dance, Drama and Music • University of Bedfordshire

3. Project Objectives • Linking the classroom with professional practice • Bridging the gap between teaching and learning and professional demands • The project aims: • To produce a suite of simulated critical incident case studies to enhance students employability skills across a range of disciplines / sectors • To involve employers, students and HE / FE staff in the production of the case studies • To evaluate the effectiveness of these critical incidents in enhancing skills for employment

4. The next stage – identifying key skills • Interviews on skills and critical incidents: • Employers – exploring their perceptions and inviting them to describe specific critical incidents which exemplify the required skills or the consequences of their absence • Interviewing lecturers in the respective discipline to illuminate their perceptions of what students need to equip themselves for their chosen profession • Interviewing current students re their expectations for the skills they would need for the respective labour market • Interviewing new and recent graduates re their experiences of their preparedness for graduate employment – also analysing previous research

5. Findings - Employers • Employers identified the following key skills as difficult to develop in their sectors: • Housing: organisational culture and society factors, help-seeking, good communication skills and providing relevant answers; • Music: networking, understanding the sector and its "unstructured" nature as a profession • Law: Commercial Awareness; finding practical solutions to problems

6. Findings - Graduates Graduates had their own views about the most important skills that they had to develop once they reached the workplace. • literacy: writing for diverse audiences (non-academic); • personal attributes: develop assertiveness (say "no"); • people related skills • networking (in particular music and marketing graduates*) • how to deal with situations and dealing with shocking situations (what to do when a theoretical model fails) • career related: finding out what you do not want to do; understanding the profession; knowing how to go about finding information * UCE Birmingham Learning and Teaching project: Using Graduates to Help Develop and Enhance the Curriculum 2005-2006

7. Skill Cultural awareness Providing relevant answers Professional ethics Networking and social confidence Unexpected and extreme emotions and reactions Social responsibility Research skills Bullying and the misuse of power Resource No Offence Meant Too Much Information Ethical Dilemmas The Networking Game Expecting the Unexpected Stone Soup Who, What, Where Inappropriate Behaviour Second stage - Resources*

8. Third stage – piloting resources and testing perceptions Piloting the resources: • All resources have been / are being piloted by different: • academic staff and / or team members • subject areas • institutions • levels of students • Evaluation by students shows that the resources + ensuing discussion = effective and valuable

9. Testing perceptions of jobs • Students asked to: • Identify the most important skills for their profession • Rank those skills in level of importance • Score their perceived level of competency in those skills • Answers then mapped against BCU Graduate Employability Framework: • Framework outlining 22 skills • Skills identified by IoD and CIHE • Most Important and Biggest Deficits

10. The most important skills to be a… Interpersonal Specialist Skills/knowledge Self Belief Action Planning/Organisation Oral/Written Commitment Team Working Adaptability and Flexibility Creativity and Innovation Analysis and Decision Making Own level of ability (lowest) Putting Theory into Practice Numeracy Career management Influence and Negotiation Action Planning/Organisation Leadership Adaptability and Flexibility Analysis and Decision Making Specialist Skills/knowledge Oral/Written Testing perceptions of jobs

11. Pilot and use our resources Some resources available now! www.bcu.ac.uk/futureproof Exhibition Dec 11th 2009